Issuing insurance policies and processing insurance claims of previously insured customers is a significant part of the business activities of insurance companies. When handling a new insurance claim (or other insurable event), the process of getting the insurance claim information to the appropriately skilled individual (claim handler) within an insurance company's claims organization is, for many insurance carriers, a manual process. Many times this is the responsibility of managers within the insurance claims organization portion of the insurance business.
Depending to some extent on the skills of the managers and the processes utilized, a number of inefficiencies may be present. The inefficiencies may lead to increased handling time for new insurance claims. Examples of inefficiencies that cause increased handling time include bottlenecks caused by the manual assignment process, inappropriate assignment due to of lack of manager skill with various types of insurance claims, and inefficiencies because many similar insurance claims of relatively low complexity require the same assignment attention of the managers as high-complexity claims.
In larger insurance organizations, managers may also have difficulty in determining the availability and existing workload of claims handlers. Accordingly, schedule conflicts among the insurance claims assigned to specific claim handlers may create further inefficiency. In addition, managers may have difficulty identifying potential claim handlers with the technical skills appropriate for certain types of insurance claims. When claims are not optimally assigned, further inefficiencies may occur such as increased cost of negotiated insurance claim payment due to lack of skill of the assigned claim handler. The inefficiencies related to increased handling time may become especially acute in insurance organizations having multiple offices in various geographic locations. With various geographically distant offices, it is difficult for managers to remain familiar with the expertise and availability of the various claims handlers at the different locations. As is readily apparent, similar inefficiencies may be present in the manual assignment of any other type of insurable event.